City image, city brand personality and Generation Z residents’ life satisfaction under economic crisis: Predictors of city-related social media engagement

The originality of the present study lies in that it examines generation Z residents’ engagement with the city’s social media during economic crisis in relation to city image, city brand personality and residents’ overall satisfaction. In order to test our hypotheses, 947 usable questionnaires were collected in Thessaloniki, Greece via the mall intercept technique. The findings reveal the significant impact city image and city brand personality have on generation Z residents’ engagement with city’s social media. The results also demonstrate a negative linkage between residents’ overall satisfaction and their engagement with the city’s social media. Lastly, the results support that the relationship between residents' overall satisfaction and their engagement with city's social media accounts is moderated by the effect of economic crisis on residents' personal daily routine. Implications for theory and practice are also discussed

Generation Z consumers' expectations of interactions in smart retailing: a future agenda

Retailing is witnessing a transformation due to rapid technological developments. Retailers are using smart technologies to improve consumer shopping experiences and to stay competitive. The biggest future challenge for marketing and consequently for retailing seems to be generation Z, since members of this generation seem to behave differently as consumers and are more focused on innovation. The aim of this paper is to explore Generation Z consumers’ current perceptions, expectations and recommendations in terms of their future interactions in smart retailing contexts. To do so, we used a qualitative approach by conducting a series of semi-structured in depth interviews with 38 university students-consumers in the UK market. The findings showed that smart technologies have a significant influence on generation Z consumers’ experiences. Moreover, this particular group of consumers expects various new devices and electronic processes to be widely available, thus offering consumers more autonomy and faster transactions. In addition, they expect the technology to enable them to make more informed shopping decisions. Interviewees also stressed the importance of training consumers how to use new smart retailing applications. In addition, some of the participants were sceptical about the effects of further advancing smart retailing on part of the job market. Relevant theoretical and practical implications are also provided

'You will like it!' Using open data to predict tourists' responses to a tourist attraction

The increasing amount of user-generated content spread via social networking services such as reviews, comments, and past experiences, has made a great deal of information available. Tourists can access this information to support their decision making process. This information is freely accessible online and generates so-called “open data”. While many studies have investigated the effect of online reviews on tourists’ decisions, none have directly investigated the extent to which open data analyses might predict tourists’ response to a certain destination. To this end, our study contributes to the process of predicting tourists’ future preferences via MathematicaTM, software that analyzes a large set of the open data (i.e. tourists’ reviews) that is freely available on tripadvisor. This is devised by generating the classification function and the best model for predicting the destination tourists would potentially select. The implications for the tourist industry are discussed in terms of research and practice

CORRELATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS’ MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT CONCEPTS OF MECHANICS FROM THEIR MENTAL AGE

This paper presents the results of empirical research conducted on students in the sixth grade of Primary School, misconceptions on concepts of mechanics of Physis, and their mental age. The mental age was determined by the WISC-III psychometric tool that is used to determine the Intelligence Quotient (IQ). The results of this study give a linear relationship between mental age and the number of correct answers given by a student. The meaning of this linear dependence is that the higher the mental age a student has, the more correctly he can perceive some physical phenomena related to concepts of force, weight, energy, work, etc. Also, the influence of the verbal and performance scale on the mental age of WISC-III is discussed in the results.  Article visualizations

Gamification design:toward developing image perception scales for generation Z consumers

Purpose – Drawing from the Personal Construct Theory, this research study analyzes the impact of employing gamified apps on user behavior by investigating the service-related images and individual preferences of Generation Z (GenZ) consumers, as these emerge from gamified applications in a tourism context. Design/methodology/approach – The Repertory Grid Analysis (RGA) elicited the top elements that reflect GenZer perceptions in tourism from empirical studies in the United Kingdom and Greece. Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) was used to investigate the structure of the data for the creation of representative Consensus Biplots of the most important conceptual constructs to advance consumer decision-making modelling via gamification. Findings – As per different gamified app best-practices considered, we extract common perceptual elements (e.g. place informative aspects, exploration, lodgings, food/catering), but also different image components (e.g. virtual/interactive, business vs. commercial traveling, entertainment, heritage/cultural informative aspects) from comparing UK with Greek GenZers’ responses. These extracted attributes are then presented in two dimensional charts, respectively, towards creating tourist perception scales. Research limitations/implications – Notwithstanding the wide availability of gamified apps, research on gamification design in tourism and hospitality is still in the early phase. This study demonstrates the need to identify and optimize the formation of different images among GenZers. It also highlights the advantageous nature of the proposed combination of Procrustes analysis with the RGA.Originality/value – This research is among the first empirical ones towards creating scales for measuring tourist perceptions of GenZers coming from different consumer markets. It responds to scholars’ recent calls for better informing gamification design and improving contemporary consumer experience.<br/